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Technology used by the world’s best professional artists, animators,and designers now available at no cost to emerging talents

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – March 5, 2014 – Cloud graphics pioneer, OTOY Inc., today announced that its renowned 3D rendering software, OctaneRender™, along with OctaneRender™ plugins for Blender™ and Autodesk’s 3ds MAX® and shortly, Maya®, are now free for students. The move puts the same cutting-edge software that’s used by hundreds of thousands of professional artists, animators, and designers, in the hands of today’s up-and-coming talents at no cost if purchased using a .edu email address.

Widely recognized for its unmatched rendering quality and speed, and supporting more than a dozen popular 3D modeling programs, OctaneRender™ is used by artists working for and with the top visual effects studios in Hollywood and around the world to create digital characters and environments that look every bit as authentic as real life. Notable features of OctaneRender™ include:

Perfect simulations of reality through unbiased rendering: OctaneRender™ simulates light as it actually is: an electromagnetic wave. Unlike competing rendering solutions that sacrifice scene accuracy to speed up rendering time, OctaneRender™ is based on the physics of light, capturing all light interactions in the scene and simulating them exactly as they would be in reality to produce the most precise representations of real life possible.

Unrivaled performance through parallel processing: OctaneRender™ was built from the ground up to harness the highly parallel horsepower of modern graphics processors or GPUs, rather than serial computer processors or CPUs. The result is dramatically faster render times than competing solutions. OctaneRender™ produces final images 10 to 50 times faster than comparable CPU-based rendering engines, letting artists spend more time on crafting their image and less time waiting for results.

Unflinching flexibility with results in real-time: OctaneRender™ provides a true WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) rendering environment that shows artists changes to materials and lighting in real-time, unlike competing solutions that force artists to switch back and forth between modeling views and renders. OctaneRender™ supports some of the most advanced material and lighting simulations possible to more accurately reflect the way light interacts with objects in the real world. Regardless of the complexity of the scene, changes are instantly updated on screen, delivering an intuitive workflow that can be quickly understood by novices and professionals alike.

Work how you want, where you want with broad program support: OctaneRender™ plugins support a wide variety of leading 3D modeling suites, letting artists work in their program of choice. Supported software includes GRAPHISOFT®’s ArchiCAD, Blender™, Daz 3D’s DAZ Studio, NewTek’s LightWave™, SmithMicro Software’s Poser®, Robert McNeel & Associates’ Rhinocerus® (or Rhino), The Foundry’s MODO®, Maxon’s CINEMA 4D, and a host of Autodesk software including 3ds MAX®, AutoCAD®, Inventor®, Maya®, Revit®, and Softimage®, and forthcoming support for Daz 3D’s Carrara and Trimble’s SketchUp. Additionally, community-developed exporter scripts for a wide range of programs extend functionality of OctaneRender™ even further. Plugins for Blender™ and Autodesk’s 3ds MAX® are the first to be available to students at no cost, with free plugin support for Autodesk’s Maya® coming soon.

“I had the great fortune of being able to learn and experiment with 3D graphics in my youth, but having access to the latest and greatest tools was always a challenge,” said Jules Urbach, Founder and CEO, OTOY. “OctaneRender represents the pinnacle of rendering software today, validated by the incredible number of users we have including some of the world’s best CG artists and animators. We’re proud to give students the chance to learn and grow using the same technology that the industry’s top talent uses, fueling their passions, and helping them bring their creative visions to life.”

OTOY Inc. is the definitive cloud graphics company, pioneering technology that is redefining content creation and delivery for media and entertainment organizations around the world. OTOY’s Academy Award®-winning technology is used by leading visual effects studios, artists, animators, designers, architects, and engineers, providing unprecedented creative freedom, new levels of realism, and new economies in content creation and distribution powered by the cloud. For more information, visit www.otoy.com.

Additional Resources:

Get more information about OctaneRender™ on the OTOY website here. Review OTOY’s Series D funding announcement here. Read more about OTOY’s advisory board here. Follow OTOY on Facebook and Twitter. Download the OTOY logo here. Get more images rendered using OTOY software here.

I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do with 3DS Max! I'll be sure I mention this to the relevant people at RMIT too.

Quick question before I do: our email addresses are <username>@student.rmit.edu.au, however this is (EDIT) now accepted by the verification system. !!

The institute is Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology; they are a well known institution, and authorised Autodesk training centre (amongst other things).If required I can have one of the staff contact you to confirm any details you may require (their email will be <staffmember>@rmit.edu.au)

Is this already available? When I click on the download link there is only option to buy, no free option for students. Thanks.

Yes. It is live - and you will get a light blue color to your name when you sign in a as a student on these forums.

But - you need a student email address - i.e. ending in .edu or .edu.au. We plan to add more domains as we validate incoming requests. However, in your case, it appears that you have logged in from your personal email account. That won't be recognized by the student license server.

Wow, great news! But I have the same issue as tagatwork's students, I study architecture at a university, but my official school e-mail adress is not .edu. It would be great if there would be a solution for those without the proper e-mail adress. Can't wait to get my hands on the blender plugin. Anyway the whole thing is a really good idea, thumbs up!

I'm afraid I have to strongly disagree that this is a good idea. Student discount, yes. Free, no. Even deeply discounted would be great. Making this completely free is an invitation for any d-bag or his dumbass kid brother (or anyone that can get their hands on a .edu, which can't be that hard if you know people) to come and sully Octane - especially the forums... I can just see it now...

Not long ago I was thinking about suggesting that you to set up a kiddie pool of sorts, in the event that you should start selling Octane on Steam etc.... Now I really, really think you should do this. Working pros need to be able post crap in forums and not get lost in a sea of "what are UV maps?"..."hows come my polys ain't showin?"...